Hoosier Representative? Indiana GOP Wants It to Be Another Republican.

Indiana Republicans are looking to alter the boundaries of the Hoosier State’s congressional districts to help Republicans in the 2026 midterms, and to that end, Vice President JD Vance is reportedly looking to meet with the state’s Republican leadership this week to coordinate that effort. 

Indiana’s redistricting process is vested in the state’s General Assembly, though Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, a Republican, does have the power to veto any plan for changing the congressional districts of the state proposed by the Iegislature.

Indiana currently sends nine representatives to the House, seven Republicans and two Democrats. Republicans are hoping to flip one of those Democrat seats. That would be Indiana’s 1st Congressional District, currently represented by Rep. Frank Mrvan. That district includes Gary and its surrounding suburbs. The other Democrat congressman is Rep. André Carson, whose Indianapolis district is seen as a blue fortress. 

A meeting with Braun is reportedly included in Vance’s itinerary for his potential trip to the state. 

At stake in next year’s midterm elections is the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. Maintaining a Republican majority in the House has several advantages for the GOP. In addition to preventing Democrats from impeaching President Donald Trump again, it would enable the GOP to get more of the Make America Great Again agenda through Congress in the final two years of the president’s term. 

Other Republican-controlled states that are contemplating redistricting include Missouri and Texas. Like Indiana, Missouri’s congressional districts are created by the state legislature subject to the governor’s veto. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott declared that congressional redistricting would be on the table in the state’s upcoming special legislative session, which sent more than 50 Democrat state legislators fleeing out of state this week to deny the GOP a quorum for conducting business.

On the Democrat side, California Gov. Gavin Newsom is considering asking voters to scrap the state’s independent redistricting commission. 

Vance sounded off on Newsom’s attempt at jettisoning the state’s comparatively less partisan process in favor of one more firmly under Democrat control, posting on the social media platform X, “The gerrymander in California is outrageous. Of their 52 congressional districts, nine of them are Republican. That means 17 percent of their delegation is Republican when Republicans regularly win 40 percent of the vote in that state. How can this possibly be allowed?”

New York state has also jumped into the redistricting fray. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, has publicly criticized Republican attempts at redistricting. 

“I have [a] news flash for Republicans in Texas. This is no longer the ‘Wild West,’” the New York governor contended. “We’re not going to tolerate our democracy being stolen in a modern-day stagecoach heist by a bunch of law-breaking cowboys.”

On Tuesday, conservative activist Charlie Kirk said that Republicans should consider escalating their political efforts if New York or California redo their maps.

“If Democrats in New York or California redo their maps, we should immediately counter by redoing the botched 2020 Census and only count U.S. citizens,” Kirk said on X.

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